Completed an oven for a customer last summer and it turned out pretty good and at completion my impression on its heat up times and heat retention was very good. Certainly a lot better than my personal oven at my home. Now the oven after sitting idle for the winter season has had its first firing in a while and the customer is noticing the stucco is warm to the touch but it used to stay cool to the touch upon completion of the project during pizza cooks.

I am wondering if the warmth that is being felt is because of moisture that has collected after sitting idle for the winter and is kind of working up through the fire brick and kind of steaming in the insulation area and warming up the stucco. I was not there personally for the last pizza cook to see and feel first hand this happening but wanted to run this by others to see if my thinking is correct or any ideas others may have regarding this turn of events for my latest oven build.

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If it worked last summer and now it doesn't, I think your assumptions are reasonable. Looking at the build (nice work!), it's hard to imagine how water would get into it. Is the humidity that bad there that the brick and insulation can absorb it? I fired mine up 2 weeks ago from the winter sleep and had no issues. I think if he uses it again the problem will be gone.

Thanks Les, lets hope we are both right. Nice work on your oven as well it looks real nice. It will be interesting to see if anyone else has had this happen to there oven after a long sleep. To answer your question about how much moisture its hard to say but its windy, cold and wet in the winter around these parts for sure.............especially if you are right on the ocean.

__________________ Step by Step of Oven #2 Build... I have built this one in partnership with a friend for a customer that took a liking to my first oven To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I am wondering if the warmth that is being felt is because of moisture that has collected after sitting idle for the winter and is kind of working up through the fire brick and kind of steaming in the insulation area and warming up the stucco.

Kudos on a very nice looking installation, I agree that over the winter your customer picked up moisture. Send it thru a cure cycle with small fires to drive out any built up water. Also you may want to consider addition a vent or two in the outside layer to allow for the water vapor to escape as this may be an annual thing.

"Warm to the touch" will mean different things at different times of the year. Late winter, early spring, a 90 degree F dome would feel warm. Not so much in mid-July. If there are no significant cracks in the inner dome - I wouldn't worry too much about it.

If you're at all concerned - take some temp readings on the outside of the enclosure after it's been fired for a few hours.

FWIW, my oven was collecting moisture via the chimney during wet and windy weather. I repositioned the metal cap and I think there is less accumulation than before. Works fine after bringing it up to temperature again after wet weather.

Looking at the picture, the left side of the base looks wet....Is there an irrigation system working against you?

I too have had this issue, its moistrue. I let my oven set for 1 & 1/2 months without a fire and it was pretty wet inside. My oven is a dome style with no roof. We had a lot of moisture during that time period and a lot of moistrue seeped into the oven. I have fired it several times and it is not heating up on the outside of the dome as it did with all the moistrue. I too will be fireing more to drive out the moisture.

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